


Laurel Lance is Gone, Only Veritas Remains

by srmiller



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: olicity - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-17
Updated: 2014-02-17
Packaged: 2018-01-12 20:14:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1198074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/srmiller/pseuds/srmiller
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based on a post from verstehen1 on Tumblr where Laurel is an antagonist, almost a villain, almost evil, whose "new purpose is to expose every secret thing, every dirty deal, every wicked deed, until there are no more secrets or lies and even if the truth hurts her, it’s the truth and she wants that more than anything."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Laurel Lance is Gone, Only Veritas Remains

**Author's Note:**

> I tagged this in Olicity because there's a paragraph where Laurel makes an observation about Oliver and Felicity I think Oliciters will get a kick out of

She wore red because the truth wasn’t black and white; it heated the veins, pumped through the heart like oxygen. Blood didn’t lie, it couldn’t.

Laurel Lance stood outside the glass and steel building of Queen Consolidated while the press huddled around the podium placed at the top of the concrete steps, ready and eager for the press conference to begin even though they didn’t know why they were there.

 When she’d learned her sister was alive, when it had been proven she’d been right all along Sebastian Blood, Laurel the Addict, Laurel the Daughter, had stripped away everything from her past until there was nothing of the mask left behind.

 Now she was Veritas, truth in the Latin, the language of lawyers and cops and botanists. Her language.

 When she recreated herself she wore no mask, no wig, and no hood because that was another lie. She had stood in the spotlight with her face in full view, her voice her own and not distorted by computers or electronics.

Standing in front of the world, with cameras and the internet putting her image on every screen in the city, she started with her own lies.

She’d listed in startling and painful detail every lie she could remember, ever mis-truth and doubt she held. In an apartment on the other side of Starling City her family watches with sick horror at the truths Laurel hurls in to the universe.

_My father is a drunk._

_My mother is a coward._

_My sister is fraud._

Though she didn’t know it at the time, four people were crowded around the consoles in a secret base underneath Verdant, all speechless as Laurel treats the web cam like a sacred confessional.

_I hate the Queens. Oliver more than anyone, more than anything. I don’t trust Felicity Smoak. Or Roy Harper. He’s a bad boy and he’ll break Thea Queen’s heart._

Digg isn’t mentioned, and they wonder why.

“I’m free,” she says as she burned the list before the camera cuts out, red words appearing on the screens of the thousands of Starling City residents watching.

NO LIE IS SAFE. I AM VERITAS.

She started with her sister, but those lies were tightly knotted and difficult to unravel so as she dug in to the missing six years of Sara Lance’s life she satisfies her truth-lust by exposing other lies.

An unregistered sex offender’s home is painted with graffiti, listing his numerous crimes.

Across town a picture the size of a minivan is pasted to the front windows of a penthouse, depicting the owner with his hand raised to a terrified woman, the image shouting in a thousand languages, “ _I hit my wife.”_

Veritas became a menace, and a savior as she exposed lies great and small through the city with ruthless disregard for the fallout.

A reporter claimed her ability to find the truth would have made her a great journalist, or an amazing cop.

Insulted, she’d outed him as gay without a second thought.

As the truths spread along with graffiti notices, posters, ads in the newspaper, and videos people argued and debated about the merits of Veritas’ truth, that no lie was necessary and soon people were beginning to follow suit and Vertias’ web site became the hub for shedding light on things best kept hidden.

Then came the video which would change everything for Laurel, for her family, for everyone who thought she wasn't serious about uncovering the truth no matter who it was hiding it. The facts of Sara Lance’s life since the Gambit went down were exposed to the world as if it wouldn't destroy her life, as if they were facts instead of life changing events. There was no emotion as Laurel destroyed her sister's life, the life of someone she had once shared a bed and dreams and tears with, someone she had once loved.

But Laurel now understood most love was a lie.

She would find out later Oliver had tried to stop Sara’s escape, so had Felicity and Digg, a worried father and a desperate mother but Sara knew she couldn’t stay anymore. The League had released her but now her existence was more than a mark on their record, now she was a risk.

Sara Lance’s name was added to the kill list once more, and even Nyssa couldn’t erase the target now painted on the blonde’s back.

Laurel’s name, Veritas, was added just beneath her sister’s as Starling City slipped into chaos while she walked down the street untouched by its citizens.

No one wanted to go after the woman who knew how to ruin anyone.

But those who were threatened by Veritas and her mission, people who feared their secrets were next on the Veritas’ list planned her death, her murder, her disappearance. The League sent assassins, but Veritas already knew their names, their weaknesses, and was prepared for them.

The Arrow saved her more than once and even that didn’t garner him safety from her vendetta. On a hot night in the middle of summer Laurel stepped out of the Arrow’s arms after he had swung them to safety from super soldier whose one weakness was he couldn’t fly.

“You’re on my list you know.”

There was a pause from beneath the hood before the electronically cloaked voice spoke, “I figured.”

“I already know who you are, Oliver.”

His hand came up to his chest and pushed an invisible button before pulling the hood back to reveal his face, his eyes still covered with the mask, “You’ve known since Sara.”

“I have. That’s the thing I’m discovering about secrets,” she crooned, enjoying the sense of power the truth gave her. The control and the stability. Nothing can surprise, nothing can hurt, when the light shines on everything. “You pull on one and everything starts to unravel.”

“Why haven’t you gone public with it?”

His face was foreign to her now, she’d been looking at him through so many lies it was as if she was looking at him for the first and she wondered how she could have ever thought she loved him.

“I’m thinking about changing my modus operandi,” she admitted, the red on her lips making her smile curl like fire, burning everything in it’s path. Beautiful and deadly. “That’s what you did, wasn’t it? Went from killing all the bad guys to tying them up so my father could bring them in.”

“Is he in your path too?”

“Yes.”

“Your father is a good man.”

She tilted her head as if confused, “He’s a liar.”

“Everyone is,” he snapped. “Do you plan on pulling everyone’s secrets from the dark?”

“Absolutely,” and there was no hesitation in her voice, no doubt about her cause. She never believed in anything the way she now believed in the truth, “Cheating wives, corrupt judges, inept lawyers, dirty CEOS. Cops who don’t arrest criminals.”

The implication didn’t go over his head, “Your father doesn’t arrest me because he understands what it is I do for this city.”

“You save it, right? You save it by lying, which is what Sebastian Blood did. He ended up trying to destroy the city.”

“You know me better-“

“I don’t know you at all,” she argued. “You’re just facts Oliver. A list of sins and saves and lies and this is the deal I’m willing to offer.” She stopped and seemed to laugh at an inside joke, “Offer a deal. Guess that law school paid off after all.”

Heels clicked on the hard concrete of the roof as she stepped closer to him, “You have four days Oliver Queen. Four days to tell the world who you are, or I will.”

“Laurel-“

“And I should clarify,” she cut in, holding up a finger. “I don’t just mean you. I mean your driver, your apprentice, your tech expert, and my father. Everyone. And tell your mother the clock is ticking the moment your deadline is up, she’ll also have four days to admit she killed her husband, tried to kill her son, kidnapped him, shot him, had an affair with Malcolm Merlyn and lied about Thea’s parentage.”

There was anger vibrating through his body as he stepped forward and grabbed her arm, shaking her with frustration he couldn’t control, “Thea never did anything to you, leave her out of this.”

“She needs to know Oliver,” Laurel told him, her voice soft as if imparting a difficult truth. “Lies only break us.”

“The truth will kill her.”

“She’ll know who she is, how can the truth be anything but freeing?” she asks because it had freed her. She’d never felt so alive, so real, in her entire life. Why had she ever lived any other way? Why had she ever thought lies protected those you love?

“Finding out her father killed thousands? Finding out her mother and her brother lied to her?” Oliver challenged.

“And she’ll be free of those binds,” she bit back, unafraid of his anger. “Free from loyalty to a mother who lied, to a brother who betrayed her. She’ll be free from the obligation of family when she realizes she has none. This is the new era of Vertias Ollie, I’m giving people a chance to take their lies in to their own hands and tell the truth before I do.”

She pried Oliver’s fingers from his shoulder, “It would be easier coming from you, don’t you think? Four days, Oliver.”

Glancing at her watch Laurel saw the deadline was up in six hours, but Laurel knew Oliver and when she’d heard about the press release hinting the CEO of Queen Consolidated would be making an announcement on the steps of the building that was the his family’s legacy, Laurel knew what his answer was.

She watched him walk down the steps dressed like a CEO, flanked by Digg on his left, Felicity to his right. Her father was up there, dressed in his uniform blues besides the blonde in the ponytail. Roy Harper stood out in jeans and a hoodie, his gaze full of insolence and anger.

 _Good_ , Laurel thought. The truth should hurt, it was the only was to cleanse.

Oliver stepped up to the podium, but when he tried to speak and no words came Felicity stepped away from the backdrop and took his hand in hers and the look they shared in front of the press was not one of plutonic friendship.

Another lie revealed to the world.

He cleared his throat, his eyes meeting those of the people who stood with him and seeming to take strength from them he cleared his throat once more time and met the cameras head on, “My name is Oliver Queen. And I am the Arrow.”

The press went wild as Laurel turned and walked away, her work done.

Stepping in to a cab she gave the driver an address and sat silently until the yellow car pulled up beside a grassy area. It was a short walk she had taken many times and by the time she stood in front of the gravestone there were already tears in her eyes.

She had broadcasted her sins to the world, her lies and her deceit and no alcohol or pill had ever given her that kind of release. But here, on a rose colored tombstone, she’d etched her one great truth.

Kneeling down her she ran her fingers over the engraving, “Thomas Merlyn.”

And just below it, in crude letters, “I didn’t deserve him. I couldn’t have loved him more.”

**Author's Note:**

> [share on tumblr if you liked it!](http://awriterincowboyboots.tumblr.com/post/79068815691/laurel-lance-is-gone-only-veritas-remains)


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